Wollongong was the destination ... and we decided to go for a drive down Bulli Pass and through to Austinmer and its surrounding areas...
We went for a nice stroll over the rock pool area...
We sat down in the shade and made our selves a nice coffee and took in the scenery...then went for a drive further down on Lawrence Hargrave Drive to drive over the beautiful constructed Sea Cliff Bridge
Lawrence Hargrave Drive is one of the most scenic roads in Australia but was notorious for rock falls, embankment slips, mud and rock slides due to high rainfall, marine erosion, weak rock and the weathering of rock features. These rock falls caused many road closures throughout the road's history.
The road winds its way around the rugged coastal scenery from Stanwell Park to Thirroul, passing through the villages of Coalcliff, Clifton, Scarborough, Wombarra, Coledale, and Austinmer. The road was built in the 1860's and in 1947 the road became Lawrence Hargrave Drive, named after the famous Australian aviation Pioneer
The lower area of the rock formation is a section of the Illawarra coal measures. These measures are made up of layers of coal, clay stone and when it is exposed to the extremes of the ocean, it weathers very rapidly. When erosion of the coal occurs, clay, stone and sandstone forms unstable overhangs, causing large collapses of boulders, falling from tens to hundreds of meters. This erosion created a significant risk for motorists. In August 2003, a large embankment slip and called for a complete road closure, which caused a great uproar with the local residents in the area...it caused an awful lot of suffering on Northern Suburbs residents and business owners.
In total, the road remained closed for two years and four months to allow for a new bridge construction, after many difficult obstacles they had to over come because of the extreme complex of building such a bridge,and the position it was in... if finally opened again in December 2005 at a cost of $52 million....
I love this area of Wollongong and would love to live around here....after travelling the bridge we turned around and headed back to North Wollongong where we had a lunch date with Pat at the Harbour Restaurant...but on the way back John showed me a little caravan park at Coaldale which in knew of whilst he worked in the area on the railway, I had no idea it was there, I loved it... its right on the beach..so we decided to check if we could book in for a few weeks...they only have 4 powered sites so we didn't hold our breath especially this time of the year... but we were lucky and managed to get a booking there in the next few weeks so I'm very excited to stay there... love being so close to the water and the beach !!!
We finished the afternoon having a lovely lunch with Pat before heading back to Camden...
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